Copy cat

Art students look at art to learn. We are told that whatever problem we're struggling with, odds are another artist has also struggled with it. Painting students will sometimes copy the work of an old master, or at least study how they moved the paint or dealt with color. Today I copied parts of a drawing as an exercise in learning brush direction with sumi-e. The drawing, dating from the 13th century, depicted frogs, rabbits, foxes, and monkeys acting like humans in various leisure activities. Animals in human form are traditionally a form of satire and mockery, with each animal representing the bureaucracy, or priesthood, or samurai, or nobles. I find it odd to be copying art like this, I understand the purpose, but it feels limiting and counter intuitive. Still, the lines are expressive and interesting, fun to reproduce, and not too complicated. My only real concern is with direction, as there are no gradients or fading, just line. Muraoka-sensei did show the class an interesting technique of rolling up a sheet of newspaper, very neatly into a tube, then using that to create a window shade with the overlaying paper. Roll the paper forward to easily see the image underneath and details that don't show through.

Stayed late in the studio, then went home and made some food. At dusk, started a night hike into the nearby mountains with Stephen from the building. We went up, and back down, passed quiet a few homes and rice fields. Passed many bamboo forests and areas that had been thinned of undergrowth. We cut a piece from a large stalk found by the road, I now have it in my room though I'm not sure what I'll do with it. Also explored a large cemetery in the hills, and only in Japan do cemeteries have vending machines at their entrance. We ended up doing a nice loop of the area, a few hours just as intended, then a walk back along the canal bank.